Black History Month: Our Work Doesn’t End
During February, Black History Month, the Washington Literacy Center (WLC) highlighted the accomplishments of African Americans. We used social media to feature and underscore the contributions of historical and contemporary African Americans, including luminaries like Frederick Douglas, Marion Wright Edelman, Mary McLeod Bethune, James Baldwin, Kendrick Lamar, and Michelle Obama.
I am proud that we partnered with Politics and Prose Bookstore to introduce and highlight the works of contemporary African American writers, including Morehouse Alumni Alonzo Vereen, who chronicles in his wonderfully written and illustrated book, “Historically Black: American Icons Who Attended HBCUs", Professor Korey Garibaldi, “Impermanent Blackness: The Making and Unmasking of Interracial Literacy Culture", which examines how Blacks and whites worked together to advance literacy discourse and production; Hanit Abdurraqib, “The Little Devil in America” highlights how Black performance is woven into the fabric of American culture, and “The House of Eve” a beautifully woven and intricate story of two Black women walking a labyrinth of love and society by Sadeqa Johnson.
Long after the TV commercials, afro-centric giveaways, and other Black History Month highlights and references have stopped, our work at WLC continues. We do our best to make a lifelong and generational difference in the lives of those we have served over the past 60 years. In a city where many adults struggling...
